North Korea Brings Backs Weapons and Troops to Shut Border Posts

Shinhye Kang, Bloomberg News

A North Korean flag flying over North Korea's Gijungdong village is seen through binoculars at the Daeseong-dong village in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Paju, South Korea. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- North Korea appears to have deployed soldiers and weapons to guard posts near the border that were shut in a 2018 deal with South Korea as tensions between the neighbors ratchet up in the wake of Pyongyang’s recent spy satellite launch.

South Korean military officials have spotted activity near the posts inside the Demilitarized Zone since late last week, the Defense Ministry said in a statement Monday. Images provided by the ministry showed a handful of soldiers outside of small posts inside the DMZ, positioning weapons.

Seoul pledged to take corresponding measures, according the statement, hinting at a restoration of South Korean guard posts near the border. South Korea’s military also detected an increase in activity for North Korea’s coastal artillery, according to the statement.

North Korea had detonated 10 of 11 guard posts inside the DMZ in the wake of a summit about five years ago between leader Kim Jong Un and then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in that led to an agreement to reduce tensions along the heavily fortified DMZ dividing the peninsula.

Current President Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative, has been skeptical about the deal struck by his predecessor, who advocated rapprochement with Pyongyang. Yoon’s government last week suspended part of the 2018 agreement after North Korea put the spy satellite in orbit, with Seoul resuming reconnaissance flights near the border that were suspended under the agreement.

North Korea then announced it intended to scrap the entire accord.

After two failed tries this year, Kim’s regime last week launched a rocket that put a spy satellite into orbit. While North Korea has hailed the latest mission as a success, there have been no indications from the outside world about whether the probe is actually operational.

Although officials in Seoul believe a North Korean spy satellite would be rudimentary at best, it could help Pyongyang refine its targeting as it rolls out new missiles designed to deliver nuclear strikes in South Korea and Japan, which host the bulk of America’s military personnel in the region.

(Updates with defense ministry statement.)